It takes time to breed successful leaders

It is possible that the next NSW Labor premier is not part of the current NSW Labor Parliamentary Caucus.

Not dismissing the potential leadership ambitions of John Roberston, Carmel Tebbutt, Kristina Kenneally, Nathan Rees or Michael Daley, let alone the newly elected members of Parliament.

Modern history suggests that newly-formed Opposition’s do not necessarily have a successful leader among their midst, particularly in the early stages, when confronted with a long-term government.

With the 24-hour news cycle, relentless polling and the urgency of addressing public policy issues, political parties have become almost surgeon-like in changing leaders.

When former NSW premier Robert Askin was elected as the 32nd premier of New South Wales in 1965, one of Labor’s most successful premier’s Neville Wran was serving at the Bar as Queen’s Counsel. In fact, he did not even become contender until he moved to the NSW Legislative Assembly in 1973, he was a member of the NSW Legislative Council in 1970.

When Neville Wran was elected premier in 1976, there was no Nick Greiner in Parliament. Greiner unsuccessfully sought to enter the NSW Legislative Assembly for the Liberal seat of Willoughby in 1978. Although defeated in his first bid to enter the legislature, he later achieved his goal of entering Parliament by successfully contesting a 1980 by-election for the electorate of Ku-ring-gai. He became premier in 1988 defeating Barrie Unsworth.

In neighbouring Victoria, when Jeff Kennett was elected premier of Victoria in 1992, Steve Bracks was serving as executive director for the Victorian Printing Industry Training Board. Bracks was elected to Parliament in 1994 before going on to defeat Kennett at the 1999 election.

When Malcolm Fraser was elected prime minister in 1975, Bob Hawke was a trade union leader, before being elected to the Melbourne seat of Wills at the 1980 election, then becoming prime minister three years later, defeating Fraser.

When John Howard was elected as Australia’s prime minister in 1996, Kevin Rudd too was not in Parliament. After an unsuccessful attempt at the 1996 election, Rudd was elected as the Member for Griffith in 1998, before being elected prime minister in 2007, defeating John Howard.

When Baroness Thatcher was elected UK prime minister in 1979, and on the way to lead the Conservatives to an 18 year rule (being succeeded by John Major), Tony Blair was not on the scene. In fact his early start to politics included unsuccessful bids at the Hackney London Borough Council, and losing the Beaconsfield by-election. He had his chance in 1983 when he was elected as the Member for Sedgefield, and later elected prime minister in 1997 - going on to become Labor’s most successful prime minister.

Similarly when Tony Blair was elected prime minister, David Cameron was not in Parliament. In fact he had an unsuccessful bid in 1997. Cameron was elected to Parliament in 2001 for the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney, and later defeated Gordon Brown in 2010 to become Prime Minister. He had an unsuccessful attempt in 1997 when Labor’s Tony Blair was first elected prime minister.

And now we have Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman undertaking a bold move to become the next Leader of the Liberal National Party and challenge Premier Anna Bligh without even being in Parliament.

A couple of lessons here, almost always successful leaders have at least one unsuccessful bid early in their political career, and it takes time to breed successful leaders.